We Must Agree On What Matters
by lilmm
Summary: A collection of drabbles illustrating moments during Kurt and Blaine's first year of living together in New York. Fluff warning.
1. Kissing In Public Places

So, I've tried to keep the details vague enough to fit in either with the known cannon of the show or with my Nest series (Yes, I'm still working on a couple of one-shots from that, so if you prompted something for that verse, don't despair, I haven't ignored you). Frankly, I don't think you'll need to be particularly caught up with either to get into the flow of this.

I plan on updating once a day, with the exception of this weekend as I will be up in the mountains with no access to reliable internet.

Each drabble or chapter is inspired from a piece of a particular Salman Rushdie quote I came across a few months ago. None of them are meant to be particularly consecutive. The last chapter in the series will contain the completed quote. I have twisted or perverted a lot of the original meanings behind the parts of the quote to fit the characters or situations, but I assume I'm too low-brow for Rushdie to notice or mind.

**I don't own Glee.**

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><p>It was more of a grassy median with a couple of trees and a bench than a park, but Kurt had long thought of it as their place in the city. It was located almost exactly between their schools, making it the ideal place for midday picnics and makeout sessions, and it had the additional benefit of being far enough away from the closest tourist traps that nobody looked at them twice.<p>

Kurt hummed happily and sucked on Blaine's lower lip. They had forgone food today and were spending their precious forty-five minutes together simply being with each other, kissing freely as though they didn't both have exams coming up that could make or break their grades in three classes, as though Kurt wasn't desperately looking for a job, as though they weren't two boys from rural Ohio.

They never would have been able to get away with this in Ohio. Even walking around Columbus or Cincinnati they had to be completely aware of the relative safety of their surroundings before doing something as innocent as holding hands. They could never comfortably kiss in public there.

It wasn't like people in New York didn't care that they were gay – in parts of some boroughs Kurt might still get harassed for his flamboyance – but in this neighborhood, in this park, they were free to be the couple they were. They could hold hands and kiss and snuggle with each other just like any of their straight friends. It was exhilarating.

Kurt pulled away and looked into Blaine's eyes, marveling at the pretty mix of greens and golds.

"I love you."

Blaine smiled and his expression softened. "I love you too."

Kurt leaned in to kiss him again and relished the feel of Blaine's tongue slipping into his mouth, Blaine's hand softly caressing his cheek. They sat there, simply kissing, until their phones warned them that their forty-five minutes were up.

And nobody looked at them twice.

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><p><strong>Reviews are awesome.<strong>


	2. Bacon Sandwiches

**Blaine is kind of channeling my brother in this. It's a little weird, but I think it works.**

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><p>"I'm home!"<p>

"Hey, honey!"

Blaine put the finishing touch on his creation and took a bite. Oh yeah that was good. Just exactly what he wanted.

"What have you been making in here? It smells like-"

"Bacon," Blaine said, swallowing his bite. "Lovely, lovely bacon."

"That's disgusting."

"No it's not. It's wonderful. Here, try a bite."

Blaine offered up his sandwich, but was actually quite pleased when it was refused. The sneer was a bit harsh though.

"I'll pass," Kurt said, wandering into the kitchen area and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. "I prefer my arteries unclogged, thank you. If you had any sense, you would too."

"One little bacon sandwich isn't going to kill me." Yes, he could probably stand not eating it so fast, but it was _good._

"This is where it starts, though." Kurt walked back over to him, an unnecessary extra swing in his hips. "It's one bacon sandwich now, but soon it will be one a month, and then one a week, and before you know it, I'll have a dead boyfriend on my hands," he straddled Blaine's hips and took the small corner of leftover sandwich away with a curl to his lips. "His arteries all clogged with bacon grease. And I just can't stand the thought of that."

Blaine licked his lips and wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist, leaning closer to inhale his boyfriend's spicy scent.

"I guess I should give up the death sandwiches then," he said, leaning in for a kiss. Kurt abruptly got out of his lap and spun away.

"Good. Glad we could agree on that."

Blaine sat there, his arms still in the air like an idiot, and blinked.

Kurt was gone. And he'd taken the rest of Blaine's sandwich with him when he left.

Blaine smirked. Kurt was gonna get it tonight.

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><p><strong>Reviews make my day.<strong>


	3. Disagreements

"Megan."

"Vivienne."

"Emily."

"Diane."

"Jane."

"Beatrix."

"Really?"

"Fine. Paris."

"Kurt, we're not naming our imaginary daughter after a city. Besides, didn't you ever read the Iliad? Paris was a douche. Actually, he was kind of a tool in Romeo and Juliet too. Absolute veto."

"Honey, I think you need to stop spending so much time watching football with Finn. You're starting to talk like him and it's kind of disturbing."

Blaine rolled his eyes at him and Kurt tried not to find it endearing. "Whatever. The point still stands."

Kurt sighed, turning over so he was more on his stomach than on his side. Blaine took the opportunity to run his foot up Kurt's calf. He had a thing about doing that whenever they were in bed, innocently or not.

"Fine. I've gone twice already," Kurt huffed. "It's your turn."

Blaine skated the backs of his fingers along Kurt's upper arm.

"What's wrong with Elizabeth? We could always name her after your mother. I wouldn't mind you know."

Kurt sighed again and lay his head down on his pillow.

"If I ever do design a fashion line, I'm naming it after her. I decided that about a week after she died. Besides, I want our kids to have their own names. They'll already have enough pressure from society for having two gay dads; they don't need pressure from us to live up to a special namesake too."

Blaine hummed and kissed his shoulder. Kurt was starting to drift off to sleep when Blaine finally spoke again.

"If you want our kids to have their own names, why did you suggest Coco? Or Diane for that matter. I'm fairly certain you weren't referencing the Roman goddess of the moon with that one."

Kurt opened an eye to glare at him.

"And you think Jane is better?"

"It's classic."

"It's a cartoon character. And I happen to know it means 'god is gracious' or something equally nauseating. I refuse to name our kids anything with that kind of religious connotation."

"Beatrix means 'blessed traveller'. Like a pilgrim."

Kurt paused. Damn. He'd really liked that one.

"Fine. I withdraw it from the discussion."

"What about boy names?"

"What about them?"

"We could end up adopting a boy."

"You mentioned international adoption from China or India or somewhere. That means it'll probably be a girl."

"What about unisex names? Then it wouldn't matter either way."

"What, like Alex?"

"Or Aaron. Although I do like that better as a girl's name. E-R-I-N just looks prettier."

Kurt smirked. "Because our possible boy will want his name to look pretty when it's written."

"Shut up."

Blaine cuddled closer and laid his head down in the middle of Kurt's back. Kurt grunted softly when it became a little more difficult to breathe, but they managed to shift enough so they were both comfortable.

"We've got years you know," Kurt said sleepily. "We still have to graduate college and get careers that pay well enough to raise a baby."

"Mm."

"And adoption's expensive."

"Mm. But if we think about it now we'll have something to look forward to."

If Kurt had been more awake he'd have grinned evilly. As it was, he settled for curling the corners of his lips.

"I'm not enough to look forward to everyday?" he murmured.

Blaine pinched his side and he squeaked, more awake than he had been.

"Abuser."

"Brat."

Blaine kissed Kurt's shoulder blade again and laid his head back down with a small snuggling motion. Kurt grinned. Before long, he felt Blaine get heavier as he fell asleep.

Kurt liked the feel of that dead weight on top of him, liked imagining what the weight of a small child would feel like asleep on his lap. It was one of the reasons they kept coming around to these discussions. They both wanted kids and they each knew it. But Kurt refused to agree to any of Blaine's names. Just… no.

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><p><strong>Review?<strong>


	4. Cutting  Edge Fashion

"You're not wearing that today, are you?"

Kurt looked up from pulling on his socks and glanced appreciatively at the outfit hanging on the hook he had installed by their closet for just that purpose. He was going to look fabulous today.

"Why?"

Blaine didn't say anything for a moment and Kurt looked in his direction. He was still in his sweats and an old Dalton sweatshirt he had pulled from somewhere.

"Kurt, honey, you do know it's about twenty degrees outside now, right? Probably colder if you factor in the wind chill."

Kurt rolled his eyes and reached for his new wool trousers. "That's what layers are for, Blaine. Why else do you think I'm wearing this awful long underwear?"

"Kurt, you complain about being cold when the heat is cranked up and we're cuddled under a blanket."

Kurt sighed. His boyfriend was so oblivious sometimes.

"Honey, what tends to happen after I complain about how cold it is?"

"You sneak a hand under my shirt and then – oh."

"Yes, oh."

Kurt popped the collar of his shirt and slid his favorite skull-patterned scarf around his neck, swiftly tying it into a cravat and pinning it in place with one of his mom's old brooches.

"Still. I don't want you to catch cold."

"Aww."

"I'm serious."

"Honey, remember my friend Julie I'm always talking about? She managed – oh, you won't believe it. I can barely believe it! She managed to score us tickets to the McQueen show at Lincoln Center today," Kurt couldn't help squealing at that. Even Blaine looked excited for him.

"Kurt, that's incredible!"

"You know I've always wanted to go to Fashion Week, and the fact that I get to go to _this_ show… I can't go looking anything less than amazing."

Blaine smiled. "You always look amazing."

Kurt unsuccessfully smothered an adoring look.

"Are you trying to earn points or something?"

"I guess I just love you."

Kurt tilted his head and gave in to the urge to kiss his boyfriend.

"I love you too," he murmured. "But I'm still wearing this."

Blaine laughed. "Fine, but you're not allowed to complain to me if you do get sick. You'll find no sympathy here."

"Such a charmer," Kurt rolled his eyes and straightened the lapels on his jacket. Fashionistas didn't get sick.

He came to regret that thought for the entire next week.

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><p><strong>For those of you not in the US, 20 degrees Fahrenheit is equal to about -6 degrees Celsius. And I'm invoking the future for having a McQueen runway show at New York Fashion Week. Yeah. <strong>

**Reviews are lovely.**


	5. Literature

Blaine didn't talk about books as much as some of his friends, and he didn't brag about how many classics he had read, but no one could deny that Blaine Anderson was something of a bibliophile.

There was something comforting, exciting about the feel of a book in his hands. With old books, there was a specific feel to the pages, a specific smell he could almost taste as he cracked them open, like he was tasting a little bit of history. New books had that fresh, exhilarating quality of the unexpected, the sanctity of clean, white pages interrupted by crisp black print. Blaine always took a perverse thrill from breaking open the spine of new books and flipping quickly through the pages to air them out, making them fluffier than they were before.

He had hundreds of books, each packed carefully into boxes like Tetrus pieces and filling the back of his car when he had left Ohio behind for good. He had so many books he needed to rent a small storage space his first year of college because there wasn't enough shelf space in his dorm room for them, even with his illegal additions from Ikea.

Kurt knew about Blaine's reading addiction from their time together at Dalton, but even he was stunned by the number of boxes full of books they had to move into their apartment.

"Please tell me this is the last of them," Kurt begged, dropping his most recent burden in the middle of what would become their living room. Blaine didn't scold him only because he himself was exhausted from the multiple trips up and down four flights of stairs. Never again would either of them think a walk-up apartment was "quaint".

"I've got a few more in my car, but I'll get them later," Blaine said, shifting one of their suitcases off the couch and collapsing into the seat.

"Are these really all filled with books?" Kurt asked, poking at the top of one of the boxes skeptically. "I thought you said you sold some of them after finals."

"I sold some text books I never thought I'd use again. Most of these are non-fiction, history and literature." Kurt raised an eyebrow at him and Blaine sighed. "I like to read, okay?"

"I knew that. I just didn't think all the books in your room would have filled up this many boxes."

Blaine shifted and avoided Kurt's eye. He was pretty sure he knew what was coming.

"Um, those are the ones that are still in my car. Those are almost all literature."

Kurt stared at him but didn't say anything. Shit.

"I- they were my escape in my old school when things were going really bad. Now I kind of need them close by to feel safe, you know? An instant escape from reality, just in case."

Kurt still wasn't saying anything but Blaine was too afraid to actually look at him to see if that was a bad thing or a horrible thing.

And then suddenly Kurt was in his lap and twining his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Oh, honey. You know you can talk to me if you need to, right? If anything's going on?"

Blaine blinked up at him and curled his arms around his waist with a smile.

"I'm not saying there's anything wrong right now. Everything's perfect, actually. It's just – it's a security thing."

Kurt hummed and kissed him softly before pulling back far enough to look at him.

"Do you have enough room to put them all away, or do you need me to come up with something ingenious to store them in?"

Blaine was stunned. Fairytale princes really did exist outside of books.

Blaine melted and kissed him senseless.

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><p><strong>I love this one.<strong>


	6. Generosity

**This chapter is hilarious to me. I work in the membership services department of a national non-profit and I see at least one request a week where the member claims to give to multiple organizations. I think the largest number I've seen was upwards of 35 different groups. I wish I had that kind of financial ability.**

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><p>Blaine had a bad habit of saying yes to canvassers. By the time he and Kurt moved in together he was giving small amounts monthly to the HRC, the ACLU, three different children's organizations, two environmental groups and an after school arts program he heard about on the news, and that didn't include the annual gifts he gave to NPR and the Warblers alumni fund.<p>

"How is it possible you barely have enough money to cover your half of the rent?" Kurt asked in exasperation the third month they'd been living together. "I know this is an expensive city, but you said your dad gave you a bunch of money at the beginning of the year. You can't be drinking that much coffee."

"I just – I have obligations. It's no big deal. I'll go busking in the park or something," Blaine shrugged.

Kurt looked at him with concern etching every line in his face and Blaine felt like a heel. He hated letting anybody down.

"Blaine, honey, you haven't gotten yourself into some kind of trouble, have you? Do we need to have a talk?"

Blaine blinked. He certainly hadn't been expecting that.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it and we won't ever have to think of it again."

"If I didn't know you I'd think you got yourself in with the mob or something," Kurt joked, taking his hand and leading him over to their secondhand sofa. Someday soon Blaine hoped to be able to buy Kurt one of the new ones he was ogling at a designer boutique they sometimes frequented on weekends. Kurt always said it was important to have things to aspire to, and Blaine intended to do everything in his power to give Kurt everything he wanted.

"Seriously, Blaine, have you been giving homeless people twenties again?"

"I – Kurt, that happened once. Besides, it's not a bad thing to be generous."

"No," Kurt said, drawing the syllable out and giving Blaine that look through his eyelashes he could never resist. "But if your generosity towards other people prevents you from being able to take care of yourself then it's a problem."

Blaine smiled in embarrassment and looked away. "Kurt…"

"Honey, I'm serious."

"Fifteen bucks here and there isn't that big a deal."

Kurt crossed his arms. "Between how many different organizations?"

"Kurt-"

"How many, Blaine?"

Blaine sighed. "I don't know, less than ten?"

"Blaine!"

"Kurt, it's not that big a deal. And it makes me feel good."

"Fine, once we're famous and successful you can volunteer and give money to as many different causes as you want, but right now you have to be smart about this. We're in _college_. Being poor is part of the description. We have to be careful with our money."

"Technically it's my money," Blaine pouted.

"_Technically_ I want to marry you someday, but I don't know that I can do that if you've given everything away."

Blaine blinked and looked over at his boyfriend, who seemed to be a bit embarrassed by his admission but still proudly met his eyes. Blaine melted and took Kurt's hand back.

"Kurt, I can't just say no to them. Some of them I've been giving to since high school."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Saying no is not as hard as you always seem to think. I do it all the time."

Blaine grinned and shook his head. Kurt's gaze got softer.

"But if it's that important to you, how about we go through and choose the top three-"

"Kurt-"

"Fine, the top _five_ and allocate $50 a month between them. That way you can still feel good and they'll know they still have your support. And it will have the added bonus of not causing arguments every month."

Blaine sighed but quickly kissed Kurt's cheek.

"Fine, but this means you have to edit your own spending habits too, you know. I'm not sure I can marry you if you've spent all our money on clothes."

Kurt squawked and swatted at him. Blaine laughed.

They'd figure it out.

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><p><strong>The number of typos I caught before uploading this... geez. How embarrassing. My spellgrammar check must suck worse than I thought. If you catch any more please let me know.**


	7. Water

**Credit for this idea goes out to Ellix. My mind kept going straight to shower scenes, and although I'm sure most of you would not have minded that in the least, I really didn't want to up the rating. Sorry.**

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><p>The geyser shot out of the sink and hit Blaine squarely in the eye.<p>

"Gah!"

"Did that fix it?" Kurt's muffled voice asked from beneath the sink.

"I think you made it worse," Blaine choked out, pressing one of their few dry kitchen towels to his face.

Their sink was possessed by some sort of demon, Blaine was sure of it. For three weeks it would alternately refuse to give them hot water, refuse to give them cold water or sometimes even refuse to give them any water at all. And it had never drained properly. Blaine hated it.

The building maintenance guy had been by twice but shrugged his shoulders both times claiming he could see nothing wrong. Impatient, Kurt had decided to take things into his own hands and deduct the cost of any parts from their next month's rent. Blaine was so sick of attempting to do the dishes in the bathroom sink that he didn't bother to put up a fight about it; now he kind of wished he had.

Kurt's hand appeared and felt around for a wrench before disappearing back under the sink. A number of very un-Kurtlike grunts floated through the air followed by the sound of metal scraping on plastic scraping on metal. The sink made a horrifying growling noise and Blaine stepped back a couple of feet, the towel raised half-heartedly in front of him as a meager defense.

"Blaine?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you try it again?"

Blaine stared at Kurt's socked feet like they had asked him to perform an exorcism with a spatula, but he sucked in a breath and inched toward the faucet again.

"Hot water."

"Okay."

Turning to face the sink side-on to minimize any potential damage, Blaine turned on the hot water. A steady stream flowed out, quickly letting off steam as it heated up. Blaine turned it off and repeated the process with the cold water. Again there were no problems. Kurt stopped him to tighten something just in case and then Blaine performed the ultimate test: he turned on the cold and the hot water _at the same time_.

Kurt squirmed out from under the sink and steadied himself on Blaine's leg.

"Did it work?"

"I – yeah, I think that fixed it. It's even draining better than it did before."

"And you doubted my genius," Kurt simpered, slipping an arm around Blaine's waist and joining him in watching the water flow down the drain.

"I didn't doubt you," Blaine tried.

"You so did." Kurt slipped away to turn off the water and faced him with his hands on his hips. "You doubted me."

"I doubted the sink."

"Uh huh."

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Fine, I doubted you. But only a little bit."

Kurt smirked and pulled at Blaine's belt loops.

"Well, I know how you can make it up to me."

Blaine raised an eyebrow as his heart began to race in anticipation.

"Oh really?"

"Mmhmm."

Kurt brushed their lips together then moved to lick just behind Blaine's ear. Blaine moaned.

"Do the dishes."

Blaine blinked and almost fell over as Kurt suddenly disappeared into their bedroom. He sighed.

Kurt was such a tease.


	8. A More Equitable Distribution

The proper title, which for some stupid reason wouldn't all fit in the chapter heading, is **A More Equitable Distribution of the World's ****Resources**.

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><p>Kurt stood back from his closet and eyed the contents critically, the fingers of his right hand drumming a steady tattoo against his hip. He was distantly aware of Blaine watching him on the bed, but he had more important things to worry about.<p>

Mentally cataloguing the items in his collection, Kurt mixed accessories with staples with special items and estimated each piece's value to his overall aesthetic. When something didn't live up to his standards, he ruthlessly dug into the fastidious closet space and discarded it onto the growing pile on his vanity seat.

"You do know you don't have to raid your entire wardrobe, right, Kurt? What you're already getting rid of will be way more than they're expecting. I doubt most of them will even know or care what a Zegna suit is."

"Blaine, just because they're poor and some of them are homeless is no reason for them to be sartorially challenged. Besides, it's not like that suit was real."

Blaine chuckled and Kurt looked back to give him a flirty wink, but stopped at what he saw.

"Popcorn, Blaine? Really? Am I that entertaining?"

"More so," Blaine grinned and shoved an absurdly large handful into his mouth just to bother Kurt. Predictably, half a dozen kernels fell to the bed instead. Blaine reddened and began to sheepishly pick them up, his cheeks still slightly bulging. Kurt refrained from commenting and turned back to his closet with a smirk.

"Besides, you're one to talk," he threw out over his shoulder as he delved in to retrieve a jacket that had never quite fit properly despite his alterations. "Just how much Brooks Brothers is in the pile you're donating?"

"Shut up."

Kurt didn't have to look back to know that Blaine was blushing even darker than before. He did anyway.

"Honey, you know I think you're adorable," Kurt said, abandoning his task and crawling on the bed toward his boyfriend in that slinky way he knew got him going every time. "And you know that I love how giving you are." Blaine made a sound of approval as Kurt moved the popcorn bowl aside to climb into his lap. "But you've got to quit criticizing my love of fashion when you're just as bad."

"Who's criticizing it? I love seeing what new outfit you've created every day and I love the way they fit you." He punctuated the remark by working his hands into the back pockets of Kurt's skinny jeans. Kurt had wondered how long Blaine would be able to resist doing that when he put them on that morning. "I just wonder how many people will appreciate it among tables of less-fabulous clothing."

Kurt hummed as Blaine began kissing down his neck.

"That's not the point. I'm hoping to expand people's fashion consciousness while also making room for new pieces myself."

"Oh, I see how it is," Blaine said, pulling away to grin in his face. "You just want to spend all the money we got for Christmas on yourself."

"Who said all the extra space was for me?" Kurt crossed his arms and leaned back, trusting Blaine not to let him fall. "Besides, I happen to know of a few favorite designers having sample sales this month. I plan to stretch that money for all it's worth."

Blaine grinned wider and nuzzled at his neck again. "You're amazing, you know that?"

Kurt gasped as Blaine started nibbling on _that_ spot just above his collar bone. With a rueful glance toward his closet, he gave up doing anything productive tonight. The fashion-impaired would just have to wait.

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><p><strong>My sister-in-law is amazing. That is all.<strong>


	9. Movies

**If you haven't seen Roman Holiday I highly recommend it. It's my favorite Audrey Hepburn movie and one of my favorite movies period. I even tried to rock her haircut for a few months. ^_~**

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><p>For some reason there was nothing quite as romantic as sitting in an almost empty theater while the black and white mastery of decades past flickered through the air above their heads and proudly showed itself on a clean white screen before them.<p>

Blaine sighed in contentment and pulled Kurt closer into his shoulder as Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gave in and kissed each other. He loved this movie. The simplicity, the humor, the tragedy of duty…

Kurt's hand inched its way under Blaine's open cardigan and stayed there, his thumb mindlessly rubbing back and forth along the fabric of his shirt. The tease against his side was both comforting and distracting. Blaine kissed the top of Kurt's head and Kurt hummed quietly.

Blaine loved these movie dates they indulged in once a month with money they should have spent on groceries. He especially loved it when they decided to go to the tiny theater twenty minutes across town to watch showings of the classics instead of seeing whatever mildly compelling blockbuster was just out in the theater three blocks from their apartment. The slower pace of old movies lent itself to a gentle buildup of romantic tension between him and Kurt, making the sex they inevitably had afterwards so much more intense.

Kurt chuckled quietly at Eddie Albert's forced pratfall and shook his head at the destruction of his trousers. Blaine smiled at the screen. That was friendship. Letting go of an opportunity like that to protect someone you'd just met, someone you kind of instantly fell in love with…

Blaine had never told Kurt he was supposed to be at an interview the day he drove to Lima to help him confront Dave Karofsky. He never told him that missed interview killed any chance he had of getting a full college scholarship with the help of a family 'friend' his dad was trying to impress. Kurt was more important. Even though they'd only just met, Kurt was more important. Just like the princess was more important to Joe Bradley.

Blaine's dad still hadn't really forgiven him that missed opportunity, but as he chuckled along with Kurt at the princess's reaction to Irving's pictures he couldn't bring himself to care. Strengthening his friendship to the love of his life was so much more important than gaining prestige with someone he'd never even met.

As the movie ended, Kurt twisted around in his arms to kiss him deeply and Blaine was so glad he hadn't let parental duty get in the way of his own romance.

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><p><strong>Yes, I know the scholarship thing has been done before, but I liked it so much I co-opted for this story. Credit for that goes to whoever originally came up with it. <strong>


	10. Music

**Yeah. So this isn't really a drabble. They just wouldn't stop being cute. You're all devastated, I'm sure.**

**Oh, and if you want to imagine one of Darren's songs (you'll know which one) or something completely different for this, go ahead. I didn't want to be too specific with it and I'm crap at writing song lyrics myself. Believe me, I've tried.**

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><p>Blaine threw his pencil down on the keyboard in frustration and scrubbed his hands across his face. No matter how many times he changed the key or played with the arrangement of the chords, something about the song just wasn't right. It needed to be right. Actually, Kurt deserved for it to be perfect, but at this point, less than 48 hours before Kurt's surprise birthday party, Blaine would settle for it simply working.<p>

All of the other details for the party had been arranged. The playlists were set, Rachel had booked the restaurant almost a month ago, and as many of Kurt's closest friends from New Directions and the Warblers as could afford it were due to fly into New York tomorrow. If Blaine could only manage to finish this song then Kurt could finally have the birthday party he'd been talking about wanting for years.

Blaine planned to perform the song at the end of the night once everyone had eaten, but hopefully before most of them were too drunk to care about anything but their own insobriety. It was meant to be a love song, but also a celebration of everything the two of them had accomplished and overcome in their lives. He was starting to worry he had been too ambitious.

For the past three weeks, Blaine had worked on five versions of the song, each with its own set of lyrics and variation on the melody, but none of them felt right.

With a sigh, Blaine threw another glance at the clock in despair and squared his shoulders. He would figure this out if it killed him.

Two hours later he wanted to give up completely. Nothing was good enough. Kurt deserved the best of everything, but the best Blaine could compose was merely mediocre.

"I'm home," Kurt called softly, his keys jangling in the lock. Blaine turned around and watched him move toward the fridge almost before setting his bag down. That was never a good sign.

"Bad day?"

"Ugh! That Carla girl would _not _shut up in class, and then Rachel was having some sort of crisis that made me miss lunch. I still don't know what the problem was even with all her griping about it. I'm starving."

Blaine choked back a laugh and refrained from commenting about how Kurt was practically crawling into the fridge. He'd only ever seen that sort of behavior from Finn.

"What about you?" Kurt asked, emerging with the contents of an impressive salad bar. "You don't look like you've moved since I left this morning. Didn't you have class?"

"I skipped it. This was more important."

"Mm. Is that the same song you've been working on? Are you ever going to tell me what it's for? Or at least let me hear it all the way through?"

"I will if I ever get it written," Blaine said ruefully, glaring at the sheet music spread around him in a chaotic mess even he would have trouble organizing. Kurt walked over and took a seat next to him on the tall footstool they used as a piano bench.

"What I've heard so far has been amazing."

Blaine sighed. "You don't have to flatter me, Kurt."

"I'm not. You know I love everything you write. And I'm not just saying that because of my boyfriend bias either. I really do think you're an amazing musician. It's part of why I fell in love with you."

Blaine huffed and leaned their foreheads together. "I think you're amazing."

Kurt smiled at him and Blaine leaned in for a kiss. Blaine loved kissing Kurt. He loved doing other things to him as well, but nothing could quite compare to the feelings of security and _rightness_ he felt when Kurt leaned forward in that certain way and kissed him back.

Kurt's stomach made an awful noise and they both pulled out of the kiss with raised eyebrows.

"O-kay. Apparently eating can't wait any longer."

Kurt rolled his eyes at himself and slipped out of Blaine's arms.

"Are you sure a salad's going to be enough?"

"A real salad's not just lettuce and dressing, Blaine, it's a carefully balanced composition of nutritional elements designed to give the body everything it needs to function well."

Blaine grinned. "I love how you didn't mention anything about it tasting good."

"You sound like Finn," Kurt pouted, munching on a carrot stick.

"I'm just teasing you."

"I know, and I love it when you use me as a distraction from your work, but judging by the sheaves of paper littering the floor I'm guessing you have some sort of deadline coming up. I don't want to get you in trouble if it's something for school."

"It's not. And it doesn't really matter at this point; I've been stuck all day. I could use a distraction," Blaine sighed.

Kurt watched him contemplatively as he tossed his salad.

"You know, I could probably help if you tell me what you're working on."

Blaine fiddled with his pencil. "I want it to be a surprise."

Kurt didn't say anything for a while and Blaine reluctantly turned back to the keyboard.

"Blaine," Kurt said quietly. "Are you trying to write me a love song for my birthday?"

Blaine spun back around and stared at his boyfriend in shock. "You-"

"It's not like it was hard to figure out," Kurt said gently. "I didn't want to say anything, but the melody you've been playing with, some of the lyrics I've seen written on scraps of paper when you thought I wasn't paying attention… I've written music too, you know."

Blaine felt his mouth gape open in what was probably a very unattractive manner and shut it quickly. He hadn't made a contingency plan for this.

"I love that you want to write a song for me, Blaine," Kurt said with a tender smile on his face. "I just wish you wouldn't beat yourself up about it not being perfect. Every piece of it I've heard you play has had my heart racing. A couple of them have even brought tears to my eyes. I'm not sure what else a love song is supposed to do."

Blaine's heart lurched and his throat closed up with emotion. Kurt really was the most perfect boyfriend he could ask for.

"I just wanted it to be perfect," he managed to choke out. "You deserve perfection."

Kurt dropped the salad tongs and walked back to him, dropping into his lap and kissing him passionately.

"I have it," he murmured against Blaine's lips. "And as long as I have you I always will."


	11. Freedom of Thought

Every night before he went to bed, Kurt's mom would kiss him on the cheek and tell him she was proud of him. She always encouraged him to be himself, whether that meant dressing up as a Power Ranger for Halloween one year or as Belle the next. She taught him to love his passions, to work for them as hard as he could no matter what they turned out to be. On her deathbed, she told him never to be someone he wasn't, because who he was was perfect, no matter what anyone else thought.

Kurt always did his best to honor his mother's memory. With only a few momentary lapses during his teen years, he was always unashamedly himself, even as Puck or one of the other school bullies tossed him into dumpsters or shoved him into locker banks for being different. He knew who he was and what he wanted, and he refused to let anyone beat that out of him.

He had never expected to feel so unsure of himself living with the love of his life.

Blaine wasn't directly responsible for this newest wave of self-doubt. He was just as charming, dreamy and affirming as he had been the day they met. But Kurt was quickly discovering in a way he somehow hadn't when they'd been in high school that Blaine was far more intelligent than he was.

Although he'd never do anything to purposely belittle Kurt's intelligence, his new friends had no such compunction. Some of them would debate for hours the relevance of existentialism over positivism while others would make snide, elitist comments about the lower or upper classes being inferior to their own self-proclaimed inclusion in the demi-monde.

Blaine often had the grace to look embarrassed or exasperated and frequently scolded them or changed the subject, but he didn't stop inviting them over, didn't stop engaging them in debate. He claimed that he found their differing points of view stimulating and helpful when he had to write his term papers, but Kurt suspected it really had more to do with needing a more comfortable environment than Agnes' poky dorm room for him and his friends to spout off whatever beliefs were the newest intellectual fad.

Kurt, ever the proper host, always laid out a selection of appetizers and provided a variety of drinks when they came over, but it only took a few experiences of their particular brand of self-indulgent snobbery for him to stop sticking around after he'd done so. He regularly retreated to Finn and Rachel's studio apartment to sulk about his house invaders, often coming home to find Blaine guiltily cleaning up the remains of bad Chinese food and cheap wine. After the third time this happened, he stopped even trying to impress Blaine's friends.

It was inevitable that he would eventually snap.

"Hey, honey," Blaine greeted, kissing him on the cheek a week before spring break was due to start. "Mark and Agnes were going to bring Sarah over to study tonight. Is that okay?"

Kurt clenched his jaw. "So I'm expected to make myself scarce, is that is?"

"What? Kurt, no. Of course you can stay if you want to. I'd love it if you stayed. I just – you always seem so bored when we start talking about dead philosophers that I didn't want to put up much of a fight when you began leaving to do something more interesting."

Kurt stared at him, appalled. "You think I'm leaving because I'm _bored_?"

"You – well, you never really joined in on any of the debates and you always get this glazed look on your face when we start talking. I just assumed you weren't interested."

"What I'm not interested in is being made to feel like an idiot just because I like fashion and Broadway and haven't read the collected works of Emmanuel Kant!"

"Wh- you think I have? You think any of us have? Kurt, that class would kill me if I didn't have access to CliffsNotes. It would probably kill any of us. I know Sarah is a bit of a snob and Agnes doesn't know when to shut up, but neither of them is any smarter than you are. And I'm fairly sure Mark is only hanging around so he can get into Agnes's pants."

Kurt blinked frustrated tears out of his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. He now felt even dumber than before.

"Kurt, honey, what is this really about?"

"I just hate feeling like I don't belong in my own house. I've always known I'm not really good enough for you but-"

"Wait, what? Kurt, how could you possibly think you're not good enough for me? I'm the idiot who couldn't see what was in front of his face for four months."

"Blaine, you're the smartest, sexiest, most talented guy I've ever met. I know you love me, but sometimes I still wonder what you're doing with me."

"I think you're talking about yourself," Blaine said quietly. Kurt smiled slightly and crossed his arms in front of him. He hated feeling this way.

Blaine studied him for a few more moments and then pulled out his phone.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm texting everybody to let them know I can't get together tonight."

"Blaine, I didn't say-"

"Shush. I don't really feel like studying tonight anyway. It's been far too long since I had a Vogue debate with my boyfriend. There's a dress in this month's edition I've just been dying to hear your opinion on."

Kurt's heart clenched and he brushed the tears from his eyes.

"Well, you know I'm not afraid to give it."

Blaine smiled and pulled him toward the couch. Kurt stopped feeling like such an idiot.

* * *

><p><strong>It's good, but I'm not as thrilled with this one as I am with others in this project. Meh.<strong>


	12. Beauty

**This one was actually written well before the music chapter, but I didn't realize how similar they were until I sat down to type this one out. Clearly I've been obsessing over certain themes between the two of them. I hope you won't mind too much.**

* * *

><p>It was supposed to be an elective, something fun to do for an extra three credits. Kurt never expected to be drawn in so completely, pun very much <em>not<em> intended, thank you, Finn. The truth was, though, that Kurt's Introduction to Drawing class had become his obsession this semester; he'd gone through three notebooks already and it was only October. After his second week of the class, he insisted on carrying a pad of paper and a selection of pencils everywhere he went in case inspiration struck. It was starting to drive his friends a little crazy.

Rachel made fun of him and nagged at him for getting a less than perfect score on his last two dance exams. His new friend Julie kept stealing his pencils so he would socialize more. Finn tried to use his sketching pads as coasters. Through it all, Kurt just gritted his teeth and played along, careful never to bring his nicer supplies with him when he left his apartment. It was just one more thing about him that he knew most people wouldn't understand.

Blaine, on the other hand, simply smiled at him and asked to see his most recent sketches. Kurt was proud of his sketches. He loved showing them off to anyone who would look at them, and Blaine knew that, but Kurt never showed Blaine the ones he attempted to do of him.

Kurt had pages and pages of attempts at drawing Blaine, some of them nothing but his hands, the side of his face, the musculature of his legs. One page was dedicated entirely to an attempt to capture the shadows on his bare back as he slept in late one morning a few weeks ago.

Kurt was afraid the sketches were a little creepy - stalkerish even - considering that most of them were done when Blaine was unconscious, but his drawing instructor had said to practice on the most beautiful things he saw and, well, even in a city like New York Blaine was still the most magnificent, captivating thing he had seen or experienced. His lips, his eyes, his voice, the way he tilted his head when he was trying to figure something out, the way he gasped Kurt's name when they were making love, the way he said, "I love you," every morning before heading out to a long day of classes… Kurt adored everything about him and longed to capture at least a portion of his brilliance for posterity.

But none of his drawings were good enough.

"Kurt, what's this?"

Kurt's eyes widened when he saw that Blaine had found the box of rejected sketches torn out of his many notebooks. Flawed as they were, he didn't have the heart to throw any of them away. There were sheets and sheets of drawing attempts in there, all of them of Blaine.

"Um, they're not important. Just-"

"Kurt," Blaine breathed, shifting through the loose pages. "These are… is this really how you see me?" He looked up, his eyes glittering in the late afternoon light filtering through their tiny windows. Kurt's breath caught in his throat.

Blaine was gorgeous.

"I've been trying to get it right for ages," Kurt finally said. "But none of them really do you justice."

Blaine tilted his head, love shining in his eyes, and just stared at him for a moment. "Kurt…"

"It's okay if you hate them. I'm still learning. Like I said, none of them are really-"

Blaine cut him off with a kiss he could feel all the down to his toes.

"They're beautiful," Blaine ran a hand down the side of Kurt's face and rested their foreheads together. "Just like you. Just like everything about you."

Kurt breathed in and slid a hand up the back of Blaine's shirt, leaning in to capture his lips once more.

He wasn't quite sure he agreed with what Blaine said, but as long as they thought that about each other they'd probably be all right. Especially if it led to kisses like this.

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>


	13. Love

**Yeah, this is so not a drabble. So much for my experiment in brevity...**

**Thank you for your wonderful reviews. For awhile there I was kind of afraid no one really liked this project and had to consistently remind myself that I had a fairly consistent readership, some of whom subscribed to or favorited this story even if they weren't giving me feedback. So thank you for that. It makes the title of this chapter so much more fitting, at least for me.**

**There's only one chapter left after this. Although there are many more moments I could write about, the quote I used as my inspiration for this project is almost at its end. I'm hoping my muse will take this opportunity to help me out with some of my other story ideas for this fandom. Or I might just use a random word generator to write more ficlets. I don't really know.**

* * *

><p>Kurt loved quickly and easily, he had since he was a small child. Long experience, however, had taught him not to trust as easily. He did it in an attempt to protect his heart, but often his instinctive mistrust, even of people he adored and greatly admired, led to a degree of self-imposed social ostracism he found difficult to escape. He loved people, but found it next to impossible to do anything about it most of the time.<p>

Blaine had confessed late one night when Kurt was sleeping over in his dorm room last year that although he always wanted to be well-liked and constantly craved other people's approval, he didn't trust people easily either. His father's on-off switch when it came to affection had seen to that. But unlike Kurt, Blaine purposely ignored his reservations about other people, seeing them as a sign that he needed to try harder, be better in order to gain their high regard. That was the reason why he often threw himself at people he barely knew; Blaine craved affection and love so badly that he'd toss aside any misgivings he might have about other people in an attempt to at least gain their friendship.

Tonight was clear evidence that Blaine's approach worked. Their apartment was full of smiling college students and their careful selection of Top 40 and Indie hits lent a fun and relaxed vibe to the party. The conversation flowed almost as freely as their illegally-obtained alcohol, and Kurt knew this party would go down as a social success on Blaine's campus.

Blaine circulated among their guests with more ease and laughter than Kurt did, which only made sense as most of them were his friends. Kurt played his part as his boyfriend's arm candy flawlessly, using tricks he'd gleaned from famous hostess's autobiographies and the occasional old movie. It was a technique they'd found worked well for them: Blaine as the friendly host who made everyone feel comfortable and Kurt as the efficient "hostess" who made sure no one felt deprived. Both of them were in their element in these roles, able to participate as much or as little as they desired without giving anyone offense and without letting anything fall through the cracks.

Kurt watched Blaine with his friends and noticed the little differences between how he held himself with them and how he acted when it was just him and Kurt. With his friends Blaine used a less intense version of his stage persona, all smiles and exaggerated facial expressions. It was an almost schizophrenic blend of his Dalton propriety and the way he thought kids their age were supposed to act. It wasn't him.

None of his friends seemed to notice that anything was off, though. Hell, Blaine probably didn't even notice that anything was off, but Kurt saw it. He never said anything, but he saw it.

Kurt passed through the room effortlessly, inviting those with empty glasses to refill them and reminding everybody that midnight was fast approaching. With a swift glance out the tiny windows to confirm that it was still snowing, Kurt made his way over to his boyfriend's side and curled his arm around his waist. Blaine instantly relaxed into him.

"So, do I get your kiss at midnight?" Kurt asked in the low, breathy voice he knew made Blaine's knees go wobbly.

"Mm, only if I get yours," Blaine murmured, snaking a hand inside Kurt's jacket and leaning into him drunkenly. Kurt hoped Blaine hadn't touched the white wine sangria someone had brought. It was made up almost entirely of chardonnay; Kurt still got nauseous at just the thought of the Chablis he drank in high school. The last thing he wanted was to throw up on Blaine after their New Years' kiss.

"I can't imagine anyone better to give it to."

Blaine smiled and hummed a bit more, burying his nose in Kurt's neck and making them sway in place a little. Somebody catcalled and Blaine flipped them off before snuggling into Kurt's chest again.

"Only five more minutes," Kurt said, stealing a glance at the over-sized wall clock he bought specifically for this party.

Blaine raised his head to say something but jumped when his phone vibrated between them.

"It's my dad," he said upon checking it. Kurt bit his lip but didn't say anything. Blaine pulled out of his arms reluctantly. "I'd better check what he wants. He wouldn't call if it wasn't important."

Kurt nodded and watched him weave through the room to the doorway and out into the hall, the phone pressed to his ear as he went.

Kurt sighed. He knew Blaine still looked up to his father despite everything, but he couldn't help but hate the man at least a little. Blaine was always more self-conscious after talking to him, always a little more reserved.

Kurt watched the clock anxiously, his heart sinking with every second that went by without Blaine in his arms.

They'd so looked forward to tonight. Last year they were forced to spend New Years apart, and although this wouldn't be the first New Year's kiss between them, it was supposed to be the first one between them as adults. Blaine had even planned this party solely as an excuse to hype the kiss up even more. He'd wanted it to be relatively public so he could show Kurt off, so they could share one of their intimate moments with people who never really got to see them _be_ intimate with each other.

Kurt had laughed at Blaine's small tiptoe over the line of exhibitionism, but he understood that the intention was not meant to be sexual. They loved each other and simply wanted the world to know it. Or at least anyone in their small corner of the world who might have had any doubts.

Blaine's friends began to drunkenly shout out the countdown and Kurt swallowed back tears of frustration. He wouldn't be surprised if Blaine's dad had called when he did on purpose so the two of them couldn't have their moment. Bastard.

With a sigh, Kurt plastered on a smile and joined in the celebration, accepting hugs from about five girls whose names he couldn't remember and a sloppy kiss on the cheek from Blaine's old roommate, Mike, who they'd both _thought_ was straight. Then again, Kurt looked feminine enough that Mike might have mistaken him for a girl in his drunken haze. Or maybe he was one of those straight guys who was cool like that. They hadn't spent enough time together for Kurt to definitively know.

When there was still no sign of his boyfriend ten minutes later, Kurt weaved his way through the crowd and exited his apartment, glancing both ways before he caught sight of Blaine sitting with his head in his hands in the window nook at the end of the hall.

"Blaine? Honey?"

Blaine didn't move or acknowledge that he'd even heard him. Kurt gently stroked a hand over his back and bent so his face was closer to Blaine's. He looked up at him with tortured eyes.

"He did this my first year at Dalton, too," Blaine said, his voice thick with tears and frustration. "He called me in the middle of the night before I had my first midterm to practically _demand_ my forgiveness. Like I owed it to him, or something. Like I was a bad person for feeling any kind of resentment toward him at all."

"You're not a bad person, Blaine," Kurt said, pressing a kiss to his curls.

"I just – I hate it when he does this. He doesn't even want the truth out of me. As long as I say the words and play along he can act like everything's fine, like he's won dad of the year despite only talking to me every six months and despite refusing to really meet you."

"Blaine-"

"I can't believe he ruined our New Years."

Kurt petted his back again. "Honey, it's not important. It's just some stupid tradition."

Blaine sighed and closed his eyes. "I wanted it to be _our_ stupid tradition. We're already denied so much that other people take for granted… I just, I wanted a piece of that too."

"We will," Kurt said gently. "Gay marriage is legal in New York, after all."

"Yeah, I guess it is," Blaine smiled.

"And someday before we're thirty we'll have a beautiful wedding with everyone we know in the audience and they'll all get to see us promise ourselves to each other."

"I want to promise myself to you."

"They'll watch us kiss for the first time as a married couple and they'll all cheer when we do, not just because it's us, but because it's not every day that two high school sweethearts can make it that far."

"I'd like that. I want everyone to know I'm yours."

Kurt smiled and leaned their heads together. "And I'm yours. But you know what the best part is?"

"What?"

"That our love is so much stronger than anybody's ignorance. We're going to make it in spite of our pasts, in spite of those stupid anti-gay laws they keep trying pass, in spite of your dad being a complete asshole." Blaine choked out a laugh. "We're going to make it because we're better than all that. They can't touch us, remember?"

"I remember," Blaine sniffed, smiling at him and cupping his cheek with the palm of his hand.

Kurt let himself bask for a moment before standing and holding a hand out to help Blaine up. "Come on. We have a public kiss to perform."

Blaine chuckled and allowed himself to be pulled up, stopping Kurt before they could reenter their apartment.

"I love you."

Kurt smiled. "I love you too," he said, brushing a kiss across Blaine's cheek. "Forever."


	14. These Will Be Our Weapons

"We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreements, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons."

~Salman Rushdie, _The Washington Post_ 10/02/2001

.

It was something Kurt had recognized back in high school: in order to get respect, you had to demand it, no matter how mortifying or frightening the situation.

Blaine had long made a lot of noise about being proud of his homosexuality, about proving bigots wrong by refusing to back down, but the truth was that he hated conflict and his early experiences with physical violence made him terrified of the possibility that an argument could escalate into more.

But if there was one thing Kurt had taught him it was that courage was more than just a word.

Inhaling deeply, Blaine straightened his shoulders and marched into Dr. Vincent Behren's wood-lined office. School policy or no, Blaine knew this particular professor disliked gays. He was constantly tossing around comments about the degradation of modern society and had even shown outright admiration for a politician who was famous for claiming that only a man and a woman in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship could ever truly understand what a relationship was, or even what love was. It made Blaine's blood boil.

He was prepared to let the issue go in order to keep the peace, but Dr. Behren had given him a C- on his midterm when, especially after looking at the work of some of the other students in his class, he knew he deserved at least an A.

"Mr… Anderson, isn't it? What can I do for you?"

"Sir, with all due respect, I'd like to contest the grade you gave me on my midterm paper."

"Do you have it with you?"

Blaine quickly dug it out of his bag and handed it over, glad his hands weren't shaking like the nervous clench of adrenaline in his gut suggested they should.

"Ah. Yes. Your argument was weak and your sources lacked credibility. Why do you think you deserve a higher grade?"

"Lacked credibility? Sir, half my sources are first-hand accounts from members of the Mattachine Society of Washington. I quoted Time Magazine and analyzed memos on the subject from the State Department and McCarthy himself. Not to mention I used part of Eisenhower's executive order on security requirements for government employees as the starting point for the entire paper. How much more credibility do you want my sources to have?"

"The assignment was to write a paper about the social effects of Cold War mentality on American culture. Can you really back up your claim that the Lavender Scare was influential enough to affect the thoughts and actions of a wide sector of American society at the time? That it was in any way equal to the consequences of the Red Scare?"

Blaine blinked in astonishment. "Yes. It was a smaller part of the whole, obviously, but thousands of people lost their jobs, had their lives ruined, simply because even the insinuation that they were gay made them security threats."

"And what does that have to do with Cold War mentalities?"

"Everything. If people weren't so scared of the Communist threat they wouldn't have been afraid that gays in the government could be blackmailed into leaking classified information to the Russians, something which could have been easily remedied by not making government jobs conditional on perceived or genuine heterosexuality in the first place."

"I don't teach subjunctive history in my class, Mr. Anderson."

"It's not subjunctive history, it's the same argument the Mattachine Society of Washington made at the time. The fact that they didn't achieve their goals is irrelevant. That they had those goals and the reasons behind why they had them is what matters, and one of those reasons relates back directly to the Lavender Scare and Cold War mentality in America in the 1950s.

"I completed the assignment within the parameters you set. Just because I didn't focus on the blacklisting of people in the media or McCarthyism more broadly doesn't mean I don't deserve an A."

Dr. Behren crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair with an unimpressed look on his face. Blaine resisted the urge to gulp.

.

"Did you convince him?" Kurt asked before Blaine even had the chance to sit down at their usual café table. Blaine took a sip from the perfectly prepared cup of coffee waiting for him before he answered.

"He raised it to a B. He said I didn't focus enough on the Cold War aspect of things but that he admired my passion for my subject. Then he invited me to register for his history seminar next semester," he shook his head. "I'm so confused."

"Well, if he invited you to take another one of his classes that must mean he likes you, right?"

"I don't even know what it means at this point. My GPA is still shot."

"Honey, I think you can live with a B on your record. You're still practically perfect in every other way."

Blaine laughed into his cup. "I'm not Mary Poppins, Kurt."

"Mm, good thing too, cause as much as I love Julie Andrews, she's one of the last people I'd ever want to take to bed. All those girl parts – euch."

Blaine laughed even harder and tried to will his face to return to a more normal color. He'd never get used to Kurt making sex jokes in public.

"Seriously, though. I'm so proud of you for confronting him today. I know you were nervous about it."

Blaine shrugged. "It's what you would have done." Kurt smiled at him and he got up the nerve to finally try to say what he'd been wanting to for years. He could just never figure out how before. "You… inspire me to be more like the person I want to be. You're so brave, Kurt. And you don't let anybody give you crap about anything. I – you have no idea how much I wish I could do that."

"You're brave too, you know," Kurt said, reaching across the table for his hand and squeezing it when Blaine gave it to him. "You're just brave in a different way. A more polite way."

Blaine huffed out a laugh and took another sip of his coffee with his free hand.

"I admire you for that so much, Blaine. People respect you because you're always so respectful of them. I have too much of a temper to be able to get away with that."

"Not to mention a wickedly sharp tongue," Blaine said, rubbing his thumb suggestively across that back of Kurt's fingers.

"Is that supposed to be some sort of proposition?"

"I don't know. Is it working?"

Kurt blushed lightly and looked away, grinning widely out the window at all the people walking far too fast to possibly appreciate how gorgeous the weather was.

"Well," he said, turning back. "I suppose you do deserve some sort of reward for being such a crusader for the cause. I can probably afford to skip the rest of my classes today. What about you?"

"Oh definitely," Blaine nodded, hoping he didn't look quite as turned on as he felt. They were still in public, after all.

"Then I guess we should go home so you can tell me exactly how I should use my tongue."

"Mm."

They stood up and quickly disposed of their coffee cups, linking their hands together as they went out the door.

Blaine grinned. He would always fight for this, for them.

* * *

><p><strong>And here it ends. For some reason, I thought this project might take longer to finish. Oh well.<strong>

**Once again, thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited and subscribed to this fic.**

**If you're curious about the subject of Blaine's paper there's a book called (surprise, surprise) _The Lavender Scare_ by David K. Johnson. I first heard about it in my Gay and Lesbian American History class in college, which is incidentally the first place I heard of Harvey Milk (I can't believe they let Chris flub that line...). LGBT history is fascinating, but unfortunately still pretty much in it's infancy in terms of resources unless you're willing to dig. _The Lavender Scare_ for instance is actually the only book on its topic that's been published as far as I know. So here's to the future when such history will be common knowledge.**


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